Rugby: Champ New Zealand on Track for 3rd Series Win

New Zealand scored a late try against England for a 12-7 victory to advance to the USA Sevens semifinals and maintain its chances of winning a third straight IRB Sevens series title.

New Zealand will play South Africa, which beat Argentina 24-5, in the first semifinal on Sunday (Monday morning Jakarta time).

Samoa, 19-14 winner over Kenya, will play South Pacific rival Fiji in the other semifinal after the Fijians beat Wales 12-5.

Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand, which won the Port Elizabeth tournament in South Africa in December and its home tournament last weekend in Wellington, completed pool play earlier on Saturday with 3-0 records.

New Zealand leads the nine-tournament world series with 73 points after four events, three ahead of Fiji and nine in front of England.

The defending Series champion New Zealanders came from behind for the second straight week against England. Tomasi Cama scored the winning try after Frank Halai had given New Zealand a 5-0 lead and Dan Nortonâ€™s try made it 7-5 for England.

â€śWe are battling really hard to get into our position,â€ť New Zealand captain D. J. Forbes said on the tournament Web site.

â€śWe played Samoa in the pool game and then we were straight into England, so we had a pretty hard draw and that is how it has been all year. But I guess it sets us up for tomorrow.â€ť

South Africa captain Kyle Brown scored his 50th Sevens series try in his teamâ€™s win over Argentina.

Fiji came from behind to beat Wales on two tries by Setefano Cakau.

England will play Argentina in the Plate semifinals on Sunday while Kenya faces Wales.â€‚